RATIONAL VS. ACTOR MODEL

Rational Actor Model vs. Victimized Actor Model

Introduction

Since the criminal court can be viewed as a large-scale organization, some of the same approaches used to understand hospitals and schools may be appropriate in explaining the adjudication and sentencing of felony cases. Three theoretical models for understanding organizations the Rational Actor Model, the victimized actor model, and the Bureaucratic Politics Model are used in analyzing 1976 data from a metropolitan court. The three models offer differing perspectives on adjudication in the criminal courts. Each model distinguishes different features of court operations as relevant in the overall understanding of felony adjudication.

The Rational Actor Model

This model assumes that the final decision of a government will always be rational, and that to reach that decision, the actor (government) will take into account principles, alternatives and purposes, always in accordance with the policy goals that the same Government had raised (Allingham, Michael, 2002). Also to be taken into account settings and its assessment goals, consideration of options, evaluating their impact and value maximization. The act of taking a decision on the same level is a calculated, where strategic issues occupy the center of concerns, while guide the selection of the best alternative to resolve the conflict (Allingham, Michael, 2002).

According to Allison the government is a unitary rational actor, which will have a whole tree of alternatives and consequences that will help you make a final decision. According to the rational model, the Government will select the most useful functional alternative, ie that which "leads all possible games in order of preference." The government will seek to address strategic issues of interest and national security through a balance between costs and benefits, always looking strategic goals and objectives. By using this model should be noted that decisions by a government or nation should combine general statements of values, objectives, alternatives and consequences, as well as case-specific propositions to be analyzed (Allingham, Michael, 2002) . In this way you can review the strategic features, find any possible omissions and organize evidence. According to Allison, the Rational Actor model includes domestic purposes and the pressures created in the wake of problems in international relations, this model should be compared with intra mechanisms from which emerge the government's actions (Bicchieri, Cristina, 2003).

The Rational Actor Model, used to interpret statistics on guilty pleas and case screening, views the processing of cases as purposeful action by legal officials whose primary operational goal is to maximize the administrative efficiency of the criminal courts. Why are both guilty pleas and case dismissals used by the court as key methods of adjudication? To explain these statistics, the Rational Actor Model considers the court's strategic calculus: the problem posed by a high-case volume or low court resource imbalance relevant court objectives, and potential alternatives, and their consequences. In this calculus, trials are viewed as court failures to negotiate terms' among prosecution, defense, and bench which limit the achievement of administrative efficiency. The statistical data indicate that the majority of cases found guilty are adjudicated ...